First-party data vs scraped/aggregated data as your source

First-party data vs scraped/aggregated data as your source

The data source under a pSEO play decides whether it's defensible or a commodity. Compare before you build.

1. First-party data (your own usage, prices, reviews, computations): unique, can't be replicated, strong reason for AI engines to cite you. Cost: you must produce it.
2. Scraped/public-aggregated data (same APIs everyone uses): fast to ship, but you're now one of 50 near-identical sites. Google picks one canonical source and it's rarely the newcomer.
3. Decision rule: if a competitor can generate the exact same page from the same public source, you have no moat — add a first-party layer (your scoring, your commentary, your dated test) or don't build it.
4. Guardrail: scraped data must be transformed, not republished. Owner-action: add at least one computed/proprietary field per page.
5. Gate: "what's here that's only here?" — if you can't answer per template, it fails.

Rollback: n/a — strategy gate, applied pre-build.

Ship gate: don't publish until all boxes are checked.